Published 4:00 am, Thursday, August 12, 2004

Photo: Kurt Rogers

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Gloria Allred talks with the media during a brake in the trial.
Out side the court house in Redwood City waiting for Amber Frey to testify in the murder trial of Lacy Peterson. 7/10/04 in Redwood City,CA.
Kurt Rogers/The Chronicle less

Gloria Allred talks with the media during a brake in the trial.
Out side the court house in Redwood City waiting for Amber Frey to testify in the murder trial of Lacy Peterson. 7/10/04 in Redwood City,CA. ... more

Allred, whose latest gig is chaperoning Amber Frey through the media horde covering the Scott Peterson double murder trial, is viewed differently by reporters than she is by the rest of the public. While television viewers must be wondering why the attorney keeps getting invited on every cable news program, journalists regard her as the ultimate insurance policy. As long as Allred is on the scene, you're guaranteed at least one quote in your story.

She's developed a reputation as an advocate for women's rights and protecting the little guy, but more than that she's the ultimate symbol for what's wrong with the media. Watch television closely and you'll see high- profile anchors, who presumably invited Allred to their show, sometimes seem confused -- as if they're not sure whether the attorney has any connection to the case they're interviewing her about. In November, several big-name journalists included Allred in discussions about Michael Jackson's criminal proceedings, seemingly uninformed as to why she was there.

"What is your association with Michael Jackson now?" Katie Couric asked Nov. 19 on "The Today Show," after pointing out that Allred had represented a boy who sued Jackson in the 1990s but hadn't been involved in that case for years. "Do you have any association whatsoever?"

"Why are you involved in this case?" O'Brien asked, while guest hosting "The Paula Zahn Show" on CNN. "Who are you representing?"

Amber Frey is at the center of the news universe this week, which is actually the worst time to see Allred at her best.

The lawyer shines the most brightly when there's absolutely nothing to say, and she manages to draw a crowd anyway. Allred is perhaps the only person on the face of the earth who can call a news conference to announce that her client has no comment, and still command headlines.

My favorite Allred moment was back in 2001, when she made the rounds with Robert Blake's ex-wife and then spent the bulk of interviews telling some of our nation's most recognizable news personalities that Sondra Blake wouldn't be commenting on her relationship with Blake or the slaying of Bonny Lee Bakley.

"I don't mean to be rude here, but I just want to make sure I understand this," a frustrated Matt Lauer said. "Then the reason that -- that both of you are appearing here this morning is simply so that Sondra can say that she is not the source of any of the stories that come -- have come out of the tabloids this week, nothing more?"

"Well exactly, Matt," Allred responded. "Because she does feel that she has the right to privacy, a zone of privacy, that she should be entitled to have."

In addition to "The Today Show," the "zone of privacy" Allred was seeking for her client also included "Rivera Live" on CNBC and Paula Zahn's show on Fox. In an attempt to further protect Sondra Blake from the media, Allred also called a news conference.

The voice of reason that day was, of all people, O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro, who on Rivera's show had the nerve to say what every viewer with half a brain must have been thinking.

"Geraldo, I don't know why she and Mrs. Blake came on the show," Shapiro griped. "They didn't offer anything other than to say, 'There's a story, and we're not going to talk about the story.' "

The last 13 paragraphs of this anti-Gloria diatribe aside, blaming Allred for the Peterson media circus is like blaming Sally Struthers for world hunger, or fingering mascot Lou Seal for the Giants' pitching woes. She's merely one side effect of a greater disease -- a chronic laziness on behalf of the reporters and editors who keep dialing her number.

I speak, embarrassingly, as a reformed trashy-celebrity-case reporter who rushed to Allred's offices in Century City many times over a five-year period in the 1990s. And while working for celebrity-hungry Los Angeles news organizations, I noticed a certain Pavlovian reflex in newsrooms every time she sent an e-mail or a fax. The typical Allred formula is simple -- a woman who has been wronged, a box of Kleenex and one or two legal associates standing by looking solemn. Editors seem to love it, the ratings must be high and reporters have an easy-to-report story that leaves the rest of the day to shop at the upscale mall across from Allred's high-rise offices.

I wrote about an paparazzo Allred client who claimed he was assaulted by Tommy Lee, a Warner Bros. employee who said her boss forced her to run a football pool, and a particularly weepy ex-girlfriend of Dodi Fayed who insisted that Fayed broke off his engagement to her after he took up with Princess Diana. (The lawsuit mercifully seemed to disappear after Diana and Fayed died in a horrible car wreck.)

During these expeditions, I discovered that Allred has exactly two things going for her, and they happen to be the most important things for journalists pursuing careers in third-rate journalism: 1. She will return your phone calls promptly; and 2. You can ask her almost any question, no matter how critical of her or her client, and she'll continue to return your phone calls promptly.

Hosts on television shows are sometimes mean to Allred, and viewers must see her as kind of a kook, but the lawyer's defense of her client is unwavering. Perhaps that's why people such as Amber Frey, who have taken weeks of abuse in the court of public opinion, flock to her. Allred is like the Rudy Ruettiger of celebrity pundits -- the petite attorney takes verbal flogging at the hands of much more physically imposing critics and still keeps coming back for more.

From the client's perspective, hiring Gloria Allred may not get you the best lawyer in the country, but it instantly brokers an uneasy truce between yourself and the media. On the downside, she's likely to jump in front of every camera in the greater metropolitan area, telling reporters about the most intimate details of your day.

("I never discuss what a client discusses with me," Allred said during one of her Tuesday news conferences on the Peterson case, then followed up a few seconds later with the breaking news that "Amber is breastfeeding. The baby was there at the courthouse. And in the break, like a good mom, even though that was a stressful morning, she went right to her baby and Justin had his little breakfast. In addition, she changed his diaper.")

But in return, none of the above journalists will pitch tents on your lawn. And for Frey, that probably seems like a pretty good deal right now. When the media mobbed Frey's car after she first arrived at the courthouse this week, Allred responded with a suggestion that she would cut off future photo opportunities.

"You'll be able to have press availability for Amber at the end of the day," Allred said during a midday news conference on Tuesday, dangling another photo op later in the week. "If we have what we had this morning, which was people basically slamming into our car with cameras, that's not going to work out."

In the end everybody won: The media got their video footage of Frey walking through the hallway, Frey got a little bit of space, and Allred got several more hours in front of the camera.

Everybody won, except the viewers, who probably didn't realize the whole thing was a setup.

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